It was another group of Renegades, and definitely not from the same camp as before.

"Well, look at that. A friendly little Renegade," one of them said, grinning in a way that was anything but friendly. A blade gleamed in his hand.

"You guys gave me a scare," Luke replied, trying to sound casual. "I just came to fill my canteen and, well, take a leak. I don't like doing that near camp, you know? Feels awkward."

Some of the men relaxed. A few weapons were lowered.

Whew.

But Luke knew. He was surrounded.

"Hey, friend, mind if I ask you something?" one of the Renegades said. "What did the sun say to the moon?"

...What?!

Luke froze.

Archers raised their bows again. Arrows began to glow. Mages whispered incantations, staffs flickering with latent energy.

"Well?" the man pressed. "What's the answer?"

Luke swallowed hard.

"Uh... he said 'Good morning'?"

The Renegade sighed and shook his head. "Wrong. The answer is, 'Get your ass up and go to work, you son of a bitch!'"

And then, explosions.

Fireballs tore through the air. Luke dove and rolled across the dirt, scrambling back to his feet. A tree ahead of him exploded on impact, splinters flying like shrapnel. Arrows rained down. A few struck his back.

"FUCK!" he yelled, pain surging through him. He launched himself downhill, sliding over loose dirt.

"GET HIM!"

Voices. Footsteps. Closing fast. Too fast.

These bastards were trained. Paranoid as hell.

Luke used Dark Dash, vanishing and reappearing ahead in a blur of motion. Still, they were right behind him.

A flash. An arrow burst into light, blinding him for a second. Someone tackled him. They rolled in the dirt. The man raised a hammer. Luke kicked him in the chest and took off again.

Throwing knives zipped past him. One grazed his arm. He ducked, rolled, dodged. A stone orb landed in front of him and exploded in lightning.

"Shit!"

Spectral hands clawed out of thin air, slamming him into a tree. A mage's conjuration.

Luke reacted by instinct. He flung a knife straight into the mage. It wasn't a killing blow, but enough to break the spell. He broke free and ran again.

The forest swallowed him. Roots, rocks, mud. He ran like death itself was chasing him.

Then he stopped.

A cliff.

"Fucking hell, this place again?!"

Behind him, the enemy's shouts echoed. Like an avalanche. The Renegades crashed through the trees, loosing arrow after arrow.

"WAIT!" Luke shouted, dismissing his kukris into the inventory. He raised his hands. "I'm not one of Bartholomew's men. I'm just a newbie who arrived this year. I just want to go back to Earth, and I think Bartholomew knows where the mechanisms are, but he's stalling!"

Silence fell like a blade.

The footsteps stopped. More warriors emerged from the forest, each one armed and ready. Luke tried to count. At least eighty. Maybe more. Archers with arrows drawn. Mages with fireballs hovering near their staves. Swordsmen with cold eyes.

Then someone walked between them. The group parted.

A man with a solid stance, dressed in militaristic clothes, a thick beard, dark hair streaked with gray. He was the only one not holding a weapon, but the way the others looked at him made it clear who was in charge.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" he said in a calm, steady voice. "That false king is stealing even that from us."

"You're Marshall?" Luke asked, hands still raised.

"The one and only."

Shit…

Without meaning to, Luke had stumbled upon the so-called Great Group the leaders always mentioned, the ones who traveled between camps carrying orders, supplies, and final decisions. And now, he stood face-to-face with the leader of the Renegades.

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Before him were soldiers of all kinds: men and women, young and old. But every one of them radiated the same hardened aura. A quiet, cold certainty in their eyes. They were ready to kill him at the first wrong move.

Luke didn't flinch.

"I've spent days trying to find you," he said. "And I'm not here looking for a fight. I just want to understand your side."

Marshall stared at him with unwavering intensity but said nothing.

"Bartholomew tells everyone you're the villains. Traitors. Murderers. But I've never been one to believe the version told by someone sitting on a throne. I prefer to see for myself. If you really do want to complete the mission and get out of here... then I want to help."

Marshall took a slow breath.

"You know," he began, his voice carrying through the trees, "years ago, I was one of fifty people who entered the fortress you now call Bastion."

His gaze sharpened. He raised his hand, four fingers extended.

"Only four made it out. The rest died to the Midnight Wardens." A heavy pause followed. The air seemed to hum with tension. "My brother was one of the dead."

Luke felt the weight in his words.

"The survivors were me, a thief, Kruger, and Bartholomew. He landed the final blow on the monster. Took the item that keeps him on the throne now, at the cost of forty-six lives."

Marshall turned and motioned behind him with a thumb.

"Everyone you see here? They're the families of those forty-six. That's how the Renegades were born. From the people who lost everything building that damned Bastion."

Silence fell again. Heads around Marshall nodded slowly in agreement.

"After we broke with Bartholomew, we left with our heads held high," he went on. "We tried to build something in the Wild Zone, far from that betrayal. But he wouldn't let us. One by one, we started dying. People going out for water, hunting food… murdered."

Luke immediately knew who he meant.

Kruger.

"His right hand. He killed at night. Left the bodies for us to find. One of the victims was my son."

Marshall said it with a calmness that didn't hide the pain or the rage. The kind of pain that had run out of tears long ago. Now there was only fire.

A chill crawled up Luke's spine. The Renegades' story ran deeper, and far more tragically, than he'd ever guessed.

"And the second mechanism?" Luke asked. "Why not go for it? With what you've got, you could take your revenge."

Marshall let out a dry laugh.

"Oh sure. That fortress, right in the middle of orc territory, guarded by even more Midnight Wardens? You think it's that easy?"

His eyes hardened. The anger remained, but there was weariness beneath it. Bone-deep exhaustion.

"If by some miracle we took that fortress, great. We'd have a 'safe zone'... for a few weeks. And then what? We'd be sitting targets. How would we protect a second Safe Zone from monsters and Bartholomew's raids? You think he'd leave us alone? He hunted us once. He'll do it again."

Marshall's fists clenched tight.

"We don't want another fortress. We want that one. We want to watch Bastion fall. We want to see Bartholomew desperate. None of us wants to go back to Earth, kid. Not unless it's with that bastard's head, and all of his men's, on a goddamn spike."

Luke's eyes locked onto the man in front of him. There was no room for negotiation. Marshall and the Renegades didn't want to win the tutorial. They wanted to burn it down.

They wanted a war.

It wasn't just revenge. It was obsession.

"Kill him!" Marshall shouted.

The mages raised their staves just as the arrows were loosed.

"Ah, shit..." Luke muttered as he stepped back. "Guess we're not doing the whole friendship thing."

The fireballs came first. He dove to the side, rolling through the damp forest soil. Arrows followed immediately. One hit his leg. Another grazed his shoulder. A third sank deep, sending him tumbling back. Before he could breathe, an explosion erupted right in front of him, showering him with stone shards and embers.

Staggering, bleeding, Luke turned to face the cliff's edge. The river below roared between jagged rocks.

Damn it. Every damn time.

He didn't hesitate. He sprinted, pushed off, and dove.

One of the Renegades ran to the edge, stunned.

"He... he jumped. He actually jumped."

"The kid's dead either way," said another, already turning back.

Marshall lingered for a few seconds, watching the river far below. Then he turned around.

"One of those bastards was right near one of our camps. Swap everything. Move all base locations. Now."

No one argued.

As the Renegades began shifting their camps, Marshall stood still. Fist clenched. Eyes to the dirt.

I'll destroy that Safe Zone. Even if everyone dies in the process. Bartholomew will pay for killing my son, he thought.

***

Luke swam against the current, every stroke a desperate struggle against pain. The freezing water hit his wounds like blades. He'd jumped without thinking, and now the consequences hit him hard — a deep gash on his shoulder, bruises covering his body, and his leg definitely broken after smashing into a rock during the fall.

Still, he let himself sink, let the river carry him through its shadowed depths.

They need to believe I'm dead.

When he finally reached the bank, he crawled through the mud, dragging himself onto solid ground before collapsing. Every breath felt like fire. Screaming wasn't an option. All he could do was fumble at his necklace with a shaking hand and pull out a healing potion.

The liquid burned down his throat, but the warmth spread fast, like holy fire stitching torn flesh back together.

"Shit..." he muttered, his face pressed to the damp grass. "Where the hell... even am I?"

He closed his eyes for just a moment. Just one...

Clop, clop, clop.

Hoofbeats.

No.

He opened his eyes slowly. First, the hooves. Then the feet — thick, armored with iron spikes. Then the voices.

"Well, look what we dragged outta the river."

Luke turned his head. Towering above him on muscular horses, clad in crude leather and metal, were orcs grinning wide with sharp teeth and gleaming green skin.

One of them, larger than the rest, dismounted with a heavy thud.

[Sarottar, Orc Captain – Lvl 24]

"Looks like we finally found the little troublemaker," the captain said. "Remember what you said? That you were gonna kill us one by one?"

More orcs stepped out from the trees, creeping from the branches like predators. Some laughed. Others were already unsheathing their weapons.

Sarottar raised his axe.

"Let's see you try now."

I'm so screwed!

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